An unapologetic collection of observations from the field as the world comes to what promises to be a glorious and, at the same time, a very nasty end.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

What Are Saul Alinsky's Real Rules for Radicals?

Conservative Bugbear - Leftist Saul Alinsky

And why are we using them ourselves?How we fight is every bit as important as why we fight or even whether we win or not. - TK

The great political debate of our times between the left and the right is fraught with lies, deception, hysteria and well-meaning fraud on both sides. What is disturbing about this is the assumption by the leadership and the movers and shakers on both sides that people are basically stupid and need to be herded about in their opinions like so many fat sheep. Both sides do it

For instance, there is an old email running around that claims that Saul Alinsky wrote the following "8 levels of
control" that must be obtained before
you are able to create a socialist/communist state. The email goes on to say that the
first is the most important.

1) Healthcare "Control
healthcare and you control the
people”2) Poverty “Increase
the Poverty level as high as
possible." Poor people are
easier to control and will not fight
back if you are providing everything for them to live.
3) Debt “Increase the
national debt to an unsustainable
level." That way you are able
to increase taxes, and this will
produce more poverty.
4) Gun Control “Remove
the ability to defend themselves
from the Government." That way
you are able to create a police
state - total local control.
5) Welfare “Take
control of every aspect of their
lives" (Food, Livestock,
Housing, and Income)
6) Education “Take
control of what people read and
listen to take control of what
children learn in school.”7) Religion “Remove
faith in God from the Government and school.”
8) Class Warfare
“Divide the people into the wealthy
against the poor. Racially
divide." This will cause more
discontent and it will be easier to tax the wealthy with full
support of the voting poor.

The email ends with this intentionally spooky statement:The bases are all
covered! We are ripe for the New
world Order (World Communism)

It does sound familiar. It should. These "8 levels of control" are little more than a rehash of a
hoax article back in the 40s called Communist Rules for Revolution.
This isn't even original stuff and predates Alinsky. Alinsky had more than one set of "rules" outlined in his writing, but none were so nakedly radical as this hoax
lays out. These 8 rules are nothing more than a crude attempt by ideologues on the right to link
President Obama's policies to Alinsky. They probably think they are doing a service for their cause.

They are not! One can make a clear connection between the president and the tactics of the radical left. This can be done if we compare
Alinsky's actual "rules" to Obama policy, but it requires more thought to figure it out.
The original author of this apparently thought we all needed help to understand how Alinsky's advice to radicals is being worked out by the current administration. There is a fatal assumption that we
are too stupid to get it. I find that offensive.

Here's what Alinsky actually said. It's a primer for people seeking to capture and retain political power.

Always remember the first rule of power tactics: Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
The second rule is: Never go outside the experience of your people. When an action is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear, and retreat.
The third rule is: Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.
The fourth rule is: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.
The fourth rule carries within it the fifth rule: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.
The sixth rule is: A good tactic is one that your people enjoy. If your people are not having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic.
The seventh rule: A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time,
after which it becomes a ritualistic commitment, like going to church
on Sunday mornings.
The eighth rule: Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.
The ninth rule: The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
The tenth rule: The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the
opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.
The eleventh rule is: If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative.
The twelfth rule: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
You cannot risk being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with
your demand and saying "You're right — we don't know what to do about
this issue. Now you tell us."
The thirteenth rule: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/alinsky.asp#rVShjCizoZYEBJT0.99

Alinsky's Rules for Power Tactics:

Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.

Never go outside the experience of your people.

Whenever possible, go outside of the experience of the enemy.

Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.

Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.

A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.

A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.

Keep the pressure on with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.

The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.

The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.

If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.

The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

Alinsky was surprisingly sensitive to criticism that he wasn't ethical
despite his nakedly amoral approach to politics. So he included a set
of rules for the ethics of power tactics. These "ethics" are so
bankrupt, it's little wonder his ethics were frequently called into question.

Alinsky's Rules to Test Whether Power Tactics are Ethical:

One's concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one's personal interest in the issue.

The judgement of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgment.

In war the end justifies almost any means.

Judgment must be made in the context of the times in which the action
occurred and not from any other chronological vantage point.

Concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa.

The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluations of means.

Generally, success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics.

The morality of means depends upon whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory.

Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition to be unethical.

You do what you can with what you have and clothe it in moral garments.

Goals must be phrased in general terms like "Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity," "Of the Common Welfare," "Pursuit of Happiness," or "Bread
and Peace."

Always remember the first rule of power tactics: Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
The second rule is: Never go outside the experience of your people. When an action is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear, and retreat.
The third rule is: Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.
The fourth rule is: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.
The fourth rule carries within it the fifth rule: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.
The sixth rule is: A good tactic is one that your people enjoy. If your people are not having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic.
The seventh rule: A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time,
after which it becomes a ritualistic commitment, like going to church
on Sunday mornings.
The eighth rule: Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.
The ninth rule: The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
The tenth rule: The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the
opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.
The eleventh rule is: If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative.
The twelfth rule: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
You cannot risk being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with
your demand and saying "You're right — we don't know what to do about
this issue. Now you tell us."
The thirteenth rule: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/alinsky.asp#rVShjCizoZYEBJT0.99

If you want to confront Alinsky's tactics and defeat them, you need to
do so with truth. When we make up things to discredit the opposition, we
sink to their level and it's little wonder our side is not doing well
in the great debate of our time. We cast ourselves as being on the side of morality and yet, we've grown so desperately afraid
because of their perceived power (Rule 1 - Power Tactics) that we have
violated our own rules of moral conduct (Rule 4), which is just what the
opposition wants and needs for us to do to discredit us.

Please can we stop this? We cannot fight the enemy using his own
tactics. Deception works in war, but not so much in politics where we
intend to avoid killing our opponents. The Communist and Nazi states
could do this with impunity because when their political war was done,
they had no moral compunction about eliminating those opponents who
remained. That's why the communist/socialist death toll was so horrific
in the 20th century. They were just cleaning house after the victory -
mopping up the battlefield so to speak.

If we are not to be like that, we must start now by being scrupulously moral as to what tactics we employ in the struggle.I cite an example here of fraud by the right. I can cite as many, if not orders of magnitude more, examples of duplicity and outright lying by our friends on the left, who are generally not as bound by the strict moral code that most conservatives espouse, that is, if Alinsky's "ethics" are any indication of the state of morality on the left.

I do not intend this as a blanket damning of anyone right or left. There are individuals who possess a powerful sense of morality and ethics on both side, who find lying, fraud and calumny reprehensible and disavow any "ally" who uses such tactics.

It is the moral left and the moral right that have the power to save this country for all of us. In order to do so, we need to turn a hose on the hothead who have lost control of themselves and will say anything, forward anything or believe anything evil of their neighbor. We are, at least those of us on the Christian right and left, are under strict orders to love our neighbors as ourselves. It's time those of us under such orders stepped up and led our own revolution - one in which love is that with which we charge cannons, rather than the naked hatred that bombards our media, our email boxes and our Facebook pages.

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I’m a native Texan, free-lance writer, teacher,
counselor, fund-raiser, grant-writer, nonprofit CEO & advocate working with children, youth, seniors, people with
disabilities and the homeless. I’m a Seventh day Adventist Christian, Reagan conservative, amateur folk guitarist, banjo player, sailor and canoer. I'm happily married to Sheila Keen, a tall pretty Louisiana girl and together we've had 3
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